One thing that commissioner David Stern has tried to make a hallmark of his tenure as NBA leader is franchise stability—he wanted to eliminate the fly-by-night owners who had gotten a toehold in the league in the 1980s, and make the league a paying proposition in a variety of markets, cutting down on the need for franchise movement.

He has been mostly successful on that account. Here in the 21st century, we have seen just four franchise transfers, with Vancouver going to Memphis in 2001, and the Charlotte Hornets going to New Orleans the following year. In ’08, the Seattle SuperSonics were plucked out of town and put into Oklahoma City, and this year, the Nets skipped from New Jersey over to Brooklyn.

The Kings could be in a new city sometime in the near future. (AP Photo)

The Hornets were replaced by the Bobcats, which doesn’t appear to be a fair trade, but at least Charlotte got a new team. The move of the Nets was a no-brainer, a benefit for the team and the league. The Grizzlies were a tougher pill to swallow, because it was a short-lived experiment, though undoubtedly an ill-conceived one.

But Seattle? The move of the Sonics never really made sense, not when there was a legion of fans supporting that team, and not when the ultimate path from the Northwest to the Plains was littered with shady characters carrying bad intentions.

When the current Thunder ownership bought the team from coffee magnate Howard Schultz in 2006, remember, they distributed a letter vowing to keep the Sonics in the Seattle area.

But the moment the Washington legislature didn’t come through with funding for a new arena, the team’s ownership—Oklahomans Clay Bennett, Aubrey McClendon and friends—threw up its hands and said they were bolting town. Two years later, they were gone.

This, Stern has said, remains one of the great disappointments of his tenure on the job. It is a job, remember, that he is leaving in a little more than a year. He wants to make amends before he goes, and he wants it badly.

Here come the Sacramento Kings, with the bungling Maloofs all but out of options. They failed to pluck a sweetheart deal out of Virginia Beach, Va., a move that might have had some trouble passing muster with the league. They hung the city of Sacramento, Mayor Kevin Johnson and Stern himself out to dry last March, after much hustling seemed to yield a workable new stadium that would keep the team in town. The Maloofs turned around and nixed the deal shortly thereafter. That came only after they tried to spirit the team to Anaheim with no one noticing, least of all the Lakers and Clippers.

So with that in mind, know that anything is possible when it comes to this franchise. It would be easy to say that the Maloofs have turned the Kings into a circus, but the circus probably attracts a bigger crowd.

Still, word that a group in Seattle, led by investor Chris Hansen and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, is close to a deal for the Kings could be a serious relief for the commissioner.

The deal would be worth around $500 million, and would erase the $70 million in debt that the Maloofs owe to Sacramento. Staying true to form, the Kings’ ownership has been wavering on whether to go through with the proposition, hoping to wring as much out of this sale as possible.

But this is where Stern can and will come in. He already had twisted a lot of arms to get the Kings a deal to stay in Sacramento, but with that option a dead one, he has been a big booster of the Hansen group, because it is well-financed, enthusiastic about the team and has a clear plan to get an arena built in two years.

Oh, and Stern knows full well that it offers the best chance to erase one of the black marks on his legacy as commissioner. He can’t let it pass.